Double-blinded randomized tests of this sort need not be overly complicated. Yes, they will be tedious. Yes, the design would need to be just right. Yes, the stats can be a little mind numbing. But it would not be expensive or even time consuming.
I think there are other reasons these tests are not done: audio gear vendors and retailers do not want it done. It is so much easier for them to have a high tech, high cost niche in which virtually every important characteristic is seen as and accepted to be subjective.
It is a bit strange to me, as a new audiophile, that this type of testing is conspicuously absent even as I see many people asking for it.
In my other hobbies (photography, for example) there is much more rigorous testing and reporting, even in magazines/sites that stand to lose advertising, than in the audiophile industry.
I think there are other reasons these tests are not done: audio gear vendors and retailers do not want it done. It is so much easier for them to have a high tech, high cost niche in which virtually every important characteristic is seen as and accepted to be subjective.
It is a bit strange to me, as a new audiophile, that this type of testing is conspicuously absent even as I see many people asking for it.
In my other hobbies (photography, for example) there is much more rigorous testing and reporting, even in magazines/sites that stand to lose advertising, than in the audiophile industry.